


Espresso Sticks

by torrentialTriages



Category: Welcome to the MSO
Genre: F/M, and his disaster of a law firm, dead coffee machines, mentions of Michael Vaughn, the dream team (the meme team)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-25
Updated: 2016-03-25
Packaged: 2018-05-28 23:29:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6350002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/torrentialTriages/pseuds/torrentialTriages
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Short stories in the days of the lives of Vaughn Law Ltd's interns. Not dems wit' de faces though.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Espresso Sticks

**Author's Note:**

> im so. this is a lot of headcanon but the ships are confirmed (also confirmed is felix/darlene but there wasnt any time)?? welcome to hell its vaughn law ltd. paris france i wrote most of this at midnight months ago and i wrote the rest of it like a couple of minutes ago
> 
> now you too can own a shirt proclaiming that ted cruz is Awful

"Aliens," stage whispered Felix.

"No," yelled the rest of his more long-term coworkers simultaneously.

\--

Darlene should not have been late to work, she muses gloomily as her coworkers all stand in a circle and look up as she walks in, asking, "What happened?"

"The coffee machine has kicked it," intones Vanessa solemnly. Felix looks ready to cry.

"Well, that's sad," Darlene manages, finally, hands still shoved in her coat pockets, understating the situation. "Someone tell Mr. Vaughn we're getting a new one."

"Shouldn't we... I dunno... Tell him the coffee machine is broken first?" Antoine clutches a mug in his fist, blonde curls hunched over the dregs of the brew he'd been lucky enough to snag before the coffee machine had decided to give up on living.

"Is he going to notice?"

Vanessa scoffs. "Vaughn doesn't notice half the shit that happens. Remember when Darlene threw Felix out the window?"

"Hey!" yelps Felix as Darlene scowls and retorts, "He doesn't remember anyone else's names! He just remembers us because we stick around and remind him every day."

"You think he'd notice if we all switched like... places, and names?"

A collective silence. A collective pondering.

"Holy shit we should try that."

"Definitely."

"What about the coffee maker?"

"Eh, send one of the other interns to get another."

"I call not it," Felix blurts immediately. "Antoine can do it."

Antoine turns, long-suffering and pleading, to his other coworkers, then heaves a great sigh and sets down his mug on the counter. "It's because you look like you're twelve and get asked for ID every time you buy anything with your credit card, isn't it, Cato."

"No it's not!" Everyone turns to Felix. He wrings his hands. "Okay well maybe it is what're you gonna do about it."

"Enough. Antoine, go forth." Vanessa spreads her arms grandly, and Antoine gives her a look like a cat about to hack up a hairball on its owner's shoes. "I mean it. Get going before Vaughn decides to grace us with his presence."

\--

"I'm suffering," Douglas deadpanned, looking indeed like he was suffering. A great deal.

"I've noticed," replied Vanessa from the cubicle facing his, equally deadpan.

"Please stop suffering," Darlene snapped automatically. Papers rustled. "I need to get these done before Mr. Vaughn yells at me to come listen to another idiotic idea he just had-"

"Darlene!"

"Ugh. You see? There he goes again." She pushed back from her desk, and yelled, "Coming, Mr. Vaughn!" Felix watched attentively like a lovelorn housecat as she left, stomping softly down the hall to their boss' office with a vengeance.

"Won't be long before she stomps out yelling about how she's suffering too," sighed Vanessa, head in a hand as the other took notes for an upcoming trial. "She's as bad as you, Douglas."

"We're all suffering," Douglas replied in his best magnanimous deadpan.

"I know," Vanessa deadpanned back, and that was that, until Darlene stormed back out and Vanessa and Douglas fell to quibbling over how much Vanessa was owed.

\--

"Hey, are you awake? I need you to bake 200 cookies. I lost a bet."

He rolls over and squints at his phone screen. "Felix, what the fuck?"

"I was thinking, like, peanut butter? People still like peanut butter, right? I know I like peanut butter, but I can't eat 200 cookies."

"Felix. Slow down." He shoves his toes into his slippers and stands up haltingly.

"Douglas," insists Felix right back on the other end. "Antoine isn't awake right now and you're the only person I know who has an oven because Darlene quit work for real yesterday after the eighty-third fax machine was tossed out the window and she moved back to Canada already and Vanessa _will not_ -"

"Never mind, Felix, shut up. You're going to give people allergic reactions with peanut butter, you know," he admonishes, clattering slowly down the stairs to the kitchen.

"So you'll do it?" Felix asks in the most hopeful tone he can muster at 3:47 am.

"I can barely bake. I hate your guts. It's fuck o'clock in the morning. I'm out of peanut butter so you're out of luck there anyway. I'll do it."

"You're a real pal, Douglas Sabine, you kn-"

"Piss off."

\--

Douglas didn't expect to spend the 2000s listening to his wife insist (ironically? Unironically? Who knew) that "Bush legit did 9/11". He also didn't expect Vanessa to jump wholeheartedly on the "Ted Cruz is the Zodiac Killer" bandwagon. He probably should've, in retrospect. No surprise that Vaughn Law Ltd.'s resident Illuminati enthusiast would be interested in more conspiracy theories and... whatever the Ted Cruz deal was.

"So, explain it to me again," he asks wearily, over morning coffee and breakfast, to Vanessa's [black and white shirt, proclaiming 'Ted Cruz was the Zodiac Killer' with a caricature of the politician.](http://tedcruzwasthezodiackiller.bigcartel.com/product/ted-cruz-was-the-zodiac-killer) "You don't actually think... ?"

"Of course not," Vanessa says in between bites of her pancake. "He was born after the Killer started doing his thing. _We_ were born after the Zodiac Killer started doing his thing."

"... Right."

"It's just a funny thing to do." She glances at the clock sitting on the mantle, then tuts disapprovingly. "Shit, I have to get to the offices soon." She stands up hurriedly, grabbing her handbag. "I'll see you later tonight maybe probably."

"Wait, Vanessa," he calls after her.

"Bye!"

"You're not wearing that to the office, are you?"

The door slams.

_"Vanessa!"_


End file.
